Gempei War (1180-1185)

Opening Moves

In May 1180 Prince Mochihito, the
son of Retired emperor Go-Shirakawa, issued a statement urging the Minamoto to
rise against the Taira. While Mochihito would be killed in June and Minamoto
Yorimasa crushed at the Battle of Uji, a fire had been set. In September
Minamoto Yoritomo, who had recieved Mochihito's call from Miyoshi Yasukiyo, set
about raising an army in the Province of Izu, where he had been in exile. There
was an irony in the preceeding events, as Taira Kiyomori had himself sown the
seeds of the war, so the poetic tale goes. His great error, we are told, had
been to spare the sons of Minamoto Yoshitomo in the wake of the Heiji
disturbance, allowing these three boys - Yoritomo, Noriyori, and Yoshitsune - to
mature and form the leadership of a new and dangerous threat.

In fact, Yoritomo's own call to
arms in the east was recieved cautiously at best. He did manage to kill the
local Taira governor, but was defeated at the Battle of Ishibashiyama by Oba
Kagechika. In the wake of this hard setback, however, Yoritomo did recieve the
valuable additon of Kajiwara Kagetoki to his staff. Elsewhere in the Kanto,
local families began to respond to Yoritomo in varying degrees and in Shimosa
and elsewhere set about eliminating Kyoto-appointed officals. This often
provoked inter-province and occasionally inter-clan civil war, a common and
oft-overlooked element of the Gempei War. By the Spring of the following year,
Yoritomo could count on at least the tacit support of most of the notable
families in the Kanto, although the Chubu, though by now nominally Minamoto
dominated, existed beyond his immediate control. Yoritomo's Kanto domain is
occasionally referred to as the Tôgaku, and rather then surge forward against
the Taira, he contented himself for the time being with consolidating his hold
locally.

The Taira response to the
violence was mixed and uncertain. Kiyomori dispatched his grandson Koremori with
an army eastward, but he turned back at the Fuji River in Suruga Province.
Closer to home, Taira Tomomori - who would prove the most able of the Taira -
had defeated the combined forces of old Minamoto Yorimasa and the warrior monks
of the Miidera at the Uji River in late June. To punish the monks for their
involvement thus far in the fledgling conflict, Kiyomori ordered the Miidera
burned and, a few months later, a number of temples in Nara as well. While all
of this was going on, Kiyomori had made the surprising decision to move the
Imperial seat to Fukuhara (to the west of Kyoto) in June. His motivations for
this abortive upheaval are unclear, but by the end of the year, the emperor was
back in Kyoto. In truth, the Taira seem to have settled on a containment policy
as regarded Yoritomo, and made little effort following the 'Battle' of Fujigawa
to reassert their control in the Kanto. They did have their hands full with
other local warriors rising up, men who used the Minamoto name as a pretext for
land grabs and the settling of old disputes.

In the middle of 1181, Yoritomo
made a surprising offer to the Taira that called for the partition of the
country between the two families, with Yoritomo taking the eastern half of the
country. Despite some favorable murmers from the Court, the Taira dismissed the
notion out of hand. Yoritomo's offer is in any event an odd one. He had, after
all, been operating quite without concern for Kyoto since the previous summer
and was at this point more or less immune to a direct Taira attack. It may well
be then, as some scholars have suggested, that Yoritomo was hoping to head off
the threat represented by Minamoto (Kiso) Yoshinaka. Also known as Kiso
Yoshinaka (from the area of Shinano he hailed from), this rough and tumble
warrior was to prove an immediate threat to the Taira - and to Yoritomo's claims
of Minamoto leadership.

Somewhat earlier, Yoritomo's
uncle Yukiie had taken the field and was to suffer defeat at the hands of Taira
Tomomori at the Battle of Sunomata in Mino Province (March 1181). Yukkie
survived this setback and would henceforth work in conjunction with Yoshinaka,
who was in a better position then Yoritomo to challange the Taira directly.

In February 1181 Taira Kiyomori
fell ill and died, leaving his son Munemori to rule. Later that year nature
would impose a forced truce over the combatants as a poor harvest brought
starvation and disease. This would last into 1183, although Yoshinaka would make
some local moves in 1182. As soon as the situation improved enough for military
manuevers, Munemori ordered a campaign to defeat Yoshinaka, who due to his
location was more worrisome even then Yoritomo. A host departed from Kyoto in
May, and in Kaga Province split up. One force, under Tomomori, would advance to
the north and swing through Noto Province. The other, larger force, led by Taira
Koremori, would advance due east towards Etchû Province. Yoshinaka managed to
ambush the latter force at Kurikawa and engineered a rout of the Taira warriors.
He followed up this stroke with a further victory at Shinohara, then marched on
the Capital. With his warriors demoralized and in disarray, a shaken Munemori
ordered an evacuation of Kyoto in he face of Yoshinaka's advance. Taking the
child-emperor Antoku, Munemori departed for the Taira's western domain. On 17
August 1183 Yoshinaka and Yukiie entered the Capital with retired Emperor
Go-Shirakawa.

Soon after taking up in Kyoto,
Yoshinaka began making noises that he ought to be considered the overall leader
of the Minamoto, a status which would if nothing else garner him a considerable
amount of prestige with the clans that had risen in the Minamoto's name.
Yoshinaka, however, quickly wore out his welcome in Kyoto thanks to the behavior
of his men in the capital and his officers in other provinces, a situation
probably not improved by his now-sluggish execution of the war with the Taira.
He did dispatch one of his generals westward with the task of reducing Yashima,
the Taira headquarters on Shikoku, an endeavor that resulted in a brisk Minamoto
defeat at Mizushima. Yukiie attempted to recoup the loss (and an evident
falling-out with Yoshinaka) by leading an army against Taira forces at Muroyama
in Harima Province. This contest ended as a further Minamoto failure, with
Yukiie barely escaping with his life.

Yoritomo had recieved the news of
Yoshinaka's presumption with no small amount of anger. Yet, rather then rush
westward to press his own claim, he had bided his time and sought to reach an
agreement with Go-Shirakawa himself. Once he was evidently confident of Court
support, he made his move. To lead his army, he dispatched his younger brothers,
Noriyori and Yoshitsune - with this campaign being the first real occasion in
which they come into the light of history. At some point in 1180 Yoritomo,
Noriyori, and Yoshitsune had been reunited, probably for the first time since
their separation in 1160. The exact activities of the latter two drift into the
unknown again until February 1184, when they marched west. Yoshitsune, who by
now had been given the rank Sô-daisho (general of the army), led an army that
included Noriyori and Kajiwara Kagetoki into the Kyoto area. Yoshinaka, learning
of the new threat, hastily dispatched an army to cover the two main eastern
doorways to Kyoto - the Uji and Seta bridges. The attacking army split into two
parts, with Yoshitsune heading for the Uji Bridge while Noriyori made a crossing
upriver at the Seta Bridge. Crossings were successful at both points and
Yoshinaka’s men lost heart and fled. When Yoshinaka heard of the defeat he
abandoned Kyoto and attempted to escape the area with a handful of retainers,
including Japan’s only famous example of a true female samurai warrior - Tomoe
Gozen. He was soon cornered at Awazu and committed suicide.

Ichi no tani and the advance
west

With Yoshinaka out of the way,
Yoritomo secured the support of Go-Shirakawa and a mandate to press the war with
the Taira. On 13 March Yoshitsune and Noriyori were given permission to set out
for the Western provinces and moved into Settsu Province, the eastern doorway to
the Setô Inland Sea. Yoshitsune’s first objective was the Taira outpost at Ichi
no Tani, a well-positioned fortification that was covered from the rear by a
steep incline. This was where the Taira had fled following their retreat from
Kyoto and could be used as a staging area for any future attempts to return to
the capital. Ichi no tani was screened by a number of outposts that included
Mikusuyama to the north and Ikuta no mori to the west. These would have to be
reduced first before Ichi no tani itself could be attacked.

Yoshitsune was to lead a force of
some 10,000 men around to the north of Ichi no tani and come out for an attack
from the west while 50,000 or so (according to the war tales) under Noriyori
would strike from the east. On 18 March Yoshitsune approached Mikusayama.
Fearing that the Taira would hastily reinforce this important position,
Yoshitsune launched an immediate night attack that brought the fort down.
According to the Heike Monogatari the surviving defenders, including three of
Taira Kiyomori’s grandsons, fled to the coast and passed over to Shikoku,
leaving 500 dead. Yoshitsune then sent 7,000 men under Doi Sanehira down to the
western side of Ichi no tani while he led the remaining 3,000 men under his
command to the top of the cliffs overlooking the fort. Meanwhile, Noriyori had
begun an attack on the forward Taira positions at Ikuta no mori, commanded by
Taira Tomomori. While Doi began to trade blows with the Taira below, Yoshitsune
called for a man who might know a way down to the rear of the castle and the
monk Benkei furnished a guide. With the Taira’s attentions fully diverted by Doi
and Noriyori, Yoshitsune led his men in a hair-raising ride down the incline and
into the rear of the fort. Stunned by the accomplishment of what they had
assumed was impossible, the Taira were thrown into a panic, their morale was
shattered by Yoshitsune’s feat. Taking the boy-emperor Antoku the Taira
commanders made for their ships, which were anchored just off shore. The boats
quickly reached capacity and set sail, leaving more then a few Taira warriors
behind to fight and die in the surf (including the tragic Taira Atsumori).

The Minamoto victory at Ichi no
tani cleared the way for an assault on Yashima, the Taira headquarters on
Shikoku. Yoritomo elected to adopt a cautious approach, however, and reined in
his two hard-fighting younger brothers. The next six months were spent
consolidating the gains already made and sorting out the many families who had
thus far supported or opposed the Minamoto. Already, Yoritimo was assuming a
rather hegemonic posture based on an agreement reached by the court and the
Minamoto in November 1583. This understanding, formalized in an edic which has
been lost to history, essentially acknowledged Yoritomo's control over those
lands which he had already captured while calling for the restoration of Kyoto
proprietorships in those regions with Yoritomo's assistance. The fact that
Yoritomo was already the indisputed master of the Kanto is an important point
when judging the arguement that this marked the actual 'birth' of the Kamakura
bakufu. At any rate, Yoritomo clearly decided to use this Imperial sanction for
all it was worth, to the point of making grants of land that were outside his
actual control.

Immediately after Ichi no tani,
Yoshitsune and Noriyori returned to Kyoto and paraded the notable Taira heads
taken through the streets. In October, a month before the edict mentioned above
was issued, Noriyori was dispatched to destroy Taira adherents on Kyushu and
began a long and tiring march through the western provinces. Yoshitsune stayed
in Kyoto and apparently acted as Yoritomo’s deputy there into early 1185.
Officially, Yoshitsune was responsible for issuing decrees ordering the
termination of any violence within Minamoto territory. In practice his
directives covered various other issues, including the forbidding of drafts and
war taxes without the express consent of the Minamoto leadership. This is a good
point to mention that the brush fire and often local nature of the Gempei War
was not easy to extinguish; Yoritomo would bring the houses of the Chubu into
line only with some difficulty.

It was during Yoshitsune's tenure
in Kyoto that the first rifts would develop between himself and his elder
brother. Yoritomo is said to have denied Yoshitsune court titles granted
Noriyori and to have become angry when the court went ahead and approved them
anyway. It may be that this was simply a matter of Yoritomo wanting his deputy
to stay outside any court influence but it seems likely that the stage was set
for what would transpire after the end of the Gempei War.

Under clear skies on 8 October
Noriyori had departed for the west with 30,000 men. Once in Harima, he received
word of Taira activities at the port of Kojima in Bizen and hastily made for the
area. Kojima was a small island separated from the mainland by a thin strip of
seawater that was nonetheless daunting enough to check Noriyori’s advance.
Stymied by a lack of boats to cross to the island, Noriyori was at a loss until
a certain Sasaki Moritsuna found a fisherman who would reveal a spot shallow
enough to allow for a crossing. By way of sharing this knowledge with the
Minamoto army, Sasaki actually rode across to the island, thereby making sure it
was he would was the first to set foot on Kojima!

Noriyori led a spirited charge
through the seawater and forced the Taira to take to their ships. Taira
Sukemori, Arimori, and Tadafusa lingered until dark trading arrows with the
Minamoto before setting their oars in motion and departing for Shikoku. With no
ships to use in pursuit, Noriyori could only resume his westward march. Little
is known or can be said about Noriyori’s activities for the remainder of the
year, although the Heike Monogatari states rather caustically that he settled
down and engaged in amusements at the expense of the local people. More likely,
logistical difficulties bogged down the campaign and in the end forced Noriyori
to suspend the advance into the New Year.

Yashima

By January 1185 Noriyori was
reporting that as he had no boats and few provisions, he was unable to prosecute
his mission to Kyushu. He reached as far as the Shimonoseki Straight (that
separated Honshu and Kyushu) before being forced to sit idly, and his requests
for shipping yielded no definitive reply from Yoritomo. Disquiet began to swell
in the ranks and Noriyori feared desertion; luckily, word came that a number of
sea-faring samurai from Kyushu desired to join the Minamoto cause. These two,
Ogata Koresaka and his brother Jirô Koretaka of Bungo, came across with some 82
vessels and finally, in February, Noriyori’s weary and demoralized army landed
on Kyushu.

In March 1185, with Noriyori
preparing to invade Kyushu, Yoshitsune was authorized to return to the war.
Intending to launch an assault on Yashima, he assembled a fleet of ships at
Watanabe (Settsu province). During the preparations he argued with Kajiwara
Kagetoki, one of his elder bother’s closest retainers, about strategy, an
incident which may very well have come back to haunt Yoshitsune later. On the
stormy night of 22 March Yoshitsune decided the time was right to sail, and
ordered his men to board ship. Observing that the weather was extremely bad the
sailors refused to put to sea, and did so only after Yoshitsune threatened to
kill any man who disobeyed his orders. Even still, not all of the ships followed
Yoshitsune into the night. Unperturbed, Yoshitsune landed on Shikoku at dawn and
set out for Yashima, some thirty miles distant. He learned from a local warrior
that despite the importance of the fort, the Taira’s garrison at Yashima was
presently reduced owing to an expedition into Iyo, a welcome piece of news that
prompted him onward.

At the time, Yashima was
separated from the mainland by a narrow channel easily fordable by horse when
the tide was low. The Taira base was situated on the beach facing the mainland,
with their fleet moored within easy reach in the shallows directly in front.
Alerted to Yoshitsune’s approach by fires set in nearby Takamatsu and fearing
that a much larger than Yoshitsune actually had was on its way, Taira Munemori
ordered an immediate evacuation of the fort and fled to the ships with the
emperor Antoku. Yoshitsune led his men into a headlong charge into the channel
and a fight ensued around the ships while a certain Minamoto worthy named
Gotobyôe Sanemoto set the fort on fire. By the time Munemori realized how few
men Yoshitsune had, the fort was in flames. The fighting thus continued in the
shallows until the coming of dusk forced a lull, at which point the Taira moved
out beyond the reach of the Minamoto’s arrows. In a celebrated incident, the
Taira, hoping to make their enemy waste arrows, hoisted up a fan on one of their
ships and challenged the Minamoto to test their archery skill on it. A certain
Nasu Munetaka, a young and diminutive warrior known for his skill with a bow,
was summoned and Yoshitsune ordered him to make a try at the fan. Determined to
hit the fan or commit suicide if he failed, Nasu waded out into the water and
loosed a humming arrow, shattering the fan - much to the delight, we are told,
of Minamoto and Taira alike. See SOTEN tsuba depicting this celebrated incident.

Dan no
ura

The morning after the attack on
Yashima, the Taira set sail for nearby Shido harbor while Yoshitsune pursued on
shore. According to the Heike Monogatari, the Taira grossly overestimated the
number of troops the Minamoto had on Shikoku and ended up fleeing the island
completely. They regrouped at Hikoshima in Nagato while Yoshitsune, after
viewing the heads of those taken, crossed over to Suo province and prepared for
what must certainly be the final battle of the war. Inspired by Yoshitsune’s
victories, some last minute supporters arrived on the scene, strengthening
Yoshitsune’s numbers in men and - more importantly - ships.

In the Taira camp, there was a
sense of resignation. There would be no further avenues of retreat should the
coming battle go against them, and their earlier defeats no doubt sat havily on
their shoulders. According to the Heike Monogatari , Taira Tomomori rallied his
comrades with a brief yet rousing call to fight to the last. Privatly, he urged
Munemori to do away with a certain Taguchi Shigeyoshi, a general from Shikoku
whose loyalty Tomomori questioned. Munemori ignored this advice.

At dawn on 24 April 1185 the
Minamoto put to sea and sailed against the waiting Taira at a place that became
famous in Japanese history as Dan no ura. Yoshitsune outnumbered his quarry in
ships by almost two to one (850-500) but the Taira promised to fight fiercely,
and with Tomomori leading them from the front, they did just that. By eight the
battle had begun, with the tide flowing in the Taira’s favor. The Taira had
divided into three groups, with a fine archer named Yamaga Hidetô commanding the
van. His bowmen did bloody work against the Minamoto warriors crammed in their
boats until the opposing flotillas joined and the fighting became one of sword
and spear. The Taira fought well and the issue was very much in doubt until,
just as Tomomori had feared, Taguchi Shigeyoshi switched sides. Taguchi made his
way to Yoshitsune’s boat and pointed out the ship that sheltered the emperor.
Armed with this knowledge and a favorable shift in the tides against the Taira,
Yoshitsune rallied his samurai and shouted for his archers to take aim at the
enemy sailors. The tide of the battle paused, shook, and then turned against the
Taira. The emperor and his mother, Taira Kiyomori’s widow, stepped into the
ocean and drowned, followed by Tomomori and hundreds of other Taira warriors.
The hapless Munemori was fished out of the ocean by the Minamoto (having been
put there by a Taira warrior disgusted at his hesitation to die) and captured
and by early afternoon Yoshitsune’s triumph was complete. The Taira clan was all
but eradicated as a threat to Minamoto power and in 1192 Yoritomo would be
granted the title of Shôgun.

The Gempei War Reassessed

While a serious examination of
the social aspects of the Gempei War is beyond the scope of this short piece,
certain points must be made. The noted and astute western scholar Jeffrey P.
Mass wrote, "…by inventing the compound Gempei (Genji vs. Heishi, or Minamoto
vs. Taira), which might then be applied retrospectively to the fighting of
1180-85, some unknown writer or storyteller greatly simplified a more complex
(and actually more significant) phenomenon." While traditionally viewed as a
straight-forward fight to the death between two old rivals, the Gempei War was
in fact a rather convoluted affair made all the more so for historians by a
relative lack of historical documentation. The Taira and Minamoto dominate the
Heike Monogatari, for example, and yet we know that much of the fighting was of
a local and often opportunistic nature. The Taira themselves remain something of
a mystery, especially as far as their organization is concerned. The composition
of the Taira during the war years, and to what extent 'Taira' opposition to the
Minamoto was composed of local and even unrelated houses, is unclear. The
activities of the Minamoto between 1160 and 1180 are also by and large a
mystery. That normally invaluable contemporary record, the Azuma kagami, is
frustratingly silent on the Taira, as well as the Minamoto prior to 1180. The
situation is not helped by a nearly complete lack of edicts issued by the Taira,
leading some to question whether the Taira were ever confident enough of their
position in Kyoto to issue any at all in their own name.

The course of the war itself is
hazy at times, largely due to the old adage that 'victors write the history
books', and holes in the historical record. We have no way of really knowing
just how much of the Heike Monogatari, whose account of the Gempei War has long
been taken almost word by word by western 'samurai' authors, is made from whole
cloth insofar as its account of the actual battles is concerned. Clearly, the
work simplified even the purely military events of the time and there can be no
doubt that figures such as Minamoto Yoshitsune (and the earlier Taira Shigemori)
were inflated to a degree for the benefit of the audience. In a sense, the
specifics of the Gempei War - the battles, armies, and tactics - were secondary
to the political arena. The only truly decisive battle, from a 'war-winning'
standpoint, was Kurikawa. The famous fights at Ichi no Tani, Yashima, and Dan no
Ura were 'nails in the coffin', conducted while Yoritomo himself was busy
consolidating his hold over Minamoto occupied Japan. One might even argue
daringly that Dan no Ura, which looms so large in Japanese history, was
essentially a 'mopping up' operation given legendary and almost Homeric (for
lack of a better word) dimensions by the Heike Monogatari's prose. Any one of
the three battles mentioned probably paled in significance to the 1184
Court-Minamoto agreement that, if nothing else, paved the way for the Kamakura
Bakufu.